A judge tentatively rejected a bid to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Black Lives Matter Grassroots against the Black Lives Matter Global Network on anti-SLAPP grounds.
By: Hillel Aron | Courthouse News
The internecine struggle for control of the Black Lives Matter organization spilled into a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday for arguments on a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against the current leadership on free speech grounds.
The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in September 2022, accuses the head of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Shalomyah Bowers, of using the world-famous organization as his “personal piggy bank” by siphoning off more than $10 million from donors, as well as stealing control of the organization “through a series of misrepresentations and unauthorized backroom dealings.”
Plaintiff Black Lives Matter Grassroots, a sort of satellite organization run by Melina Abdullah, a longtime progressive activist who founded the LA chapter of Black Lives Matter (or BLM) filed the lawsuit. In a declaration filed earlier this month, Abdullah said that the former leader of BLM (and one of its three co-founders), Patrisse Cullors, had been “positioning” Abdullah to take over the organization after Cullors stepped down but that Bowers maneuvered to gain control, eventually locking her out of BLM’s digital platforms and social media accounts, which Abdullah had been routinely posting on and using to organize.
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